Category: Writing

I’m not crazy about this rainy windy weather. Poked around editing yesterday, wrote maybe 20 new words. I keep expecting a lift in my spirits so I can get back to writing and the news ruins it. I thought the wind had dropped but it’s gusting hard.

At this time, right now, I want to shelve Honey on the Moon. I understand what’s wrong with the book, but I can’t fix it until certain conditions are in place, which aren’t. And I can’t talk about it here, because it isn’t the appropriate venue, and for love and money I can’t find the right one.

FML.

aw well nobody expects a creative life to be particularly easy.

scanged off reddit

noted later, as in, in December 2020…. I had to get a cultural competence reader and deal with my racism in practical terms – when I’ve worked through that I’ll probably get going again…. we shall see

I’d like to believe that the senior military officers of the US of A are too smart to help Trump start a nuclear war on accident but no, I guess I don’t. I’ve sent a message of support to the one person I know well who’s Irani.

Yesterday I slept most of the day, probably because the day before yesterday involved a lot of walking and talking, and I’m not as moveable a feast as I used to be.

FINALLY

Have you ever noticed that rich white men like hiding in with poor Black, Indigenous and settler men when they’re trying to make a shitty shitty shitsome rhetorical point? Because without sorting this chart for racial data it’s just MRA barf in a data-is-beautiful branded tote.

It will probably disappear but here is the original.

This looks like men are worse off in every way than women. AND ABSOLUTELY, A LARGE NUMBER OF BLACK MEN ARE WORSE OFF THAN A LARGE NUMBER OF WHITE WOMEN by any number of standards.

Also, and this is the part that’s interesting, every single legislature in the US is majority run by men, and yet they keep passing legislation that does nothing to address how there is a permanent, underhoused, overjailed, brain damaged and mostly black and immigrant underclass in the US… as demonstrated by this.

check and mate assholes

Went to the Spit at the Wicklow, which was absolutely bloody marvellous. Remember me grousing about feeling left out, weeeeelllll they saved me a seat ‘at the end with the sf fans’ and gosh if that didn’t snap me right outta the doldrums It was a lovely convo with Cheryl and Rob and DEE’S SON WAS THERE I haven’t seen him or heard of him since like 15 years ago – you know the part of my blog which I just transferred over here – and HE asked to be remembered to Keith, because they were both teenaged anime fans together, so that was all lovely. He remembered Keith as kind and welcoming, what kind of a horrible thing is that for a mother to hear. /end smirk

The burger and salad was fantastic. Seriously that was the best restaurant burger ever, Dean would have been ecstatic with it although almost for shore he would have said they could have toasted the bun longer. I had two ‘fat tugs’ and my liver’s ‘banding’ this morning. I shouldn’t drink but I was with friends on New Years Day and we laughed our asses off, it was so much fun.

Then hugs all ’round and off to Al’s place for his new years levee, and I talked to two delightful migrants to our shores by the name of Oscar and Roman and the first white woman born in Yellowknife hospital whose name I can pronounce but not spell so let’s just say it was an interesting, broad and convivial gathering. When I was t minus 90 minutes and collapsing I thanked our host and booked it, right into this.

Obviously I went for speed rather than composition and then half a block later ALL THAT COLOUR WAS SUBSUMED into a pinky gold stripe and another half block later it was gone. Normally these photos don’t give you any idea of the slash o’ glory that is purple, pink and gold, but it was a lot like that

GRAB IT while you can.

I was supposed to go to Mike’s but I didn’t have a key on me and so I went home. Jeff and I watched some TV, Mike called back and now I’m here, listening to the ‘normal day’ traffic sounds winding up into rush hour. He fed me chicken and shrimp and salad and oven baked tiny taters and so I had two fantastic meals.

Watched about half of the Martin Scorscese Rolling Thunder Revue. Bob Dylan is a weirdo. Scarlet Rivera isn’t Hispanic. Allen Ginsberg really knew how to dance and chased straight teenage boys. There’s a lot of 16 mm performance footage which is great. The entire thing is fictionalized so you can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t, which completely sucks, especially when so many of the people involved were fakes to begin with. Not recommended unless you do drugs first.

I just want to say my hips really hurt right now.

Some fucker was setting off bangers for about half an hour straight last night, I hope it was worth it, asshole.

Me? SNORE. I could have gone to Mike’s but it was kinda last minute so we moved it to tonight. Today I spit with the other spitters (Dorothy Dunnett crowd) at the Wicklow and then off to Al’s (I met him through Lorraine Murphy yonks ago) for his new years day Levée. And THEN to Mike’s. I imagine I’ll be exhausted by the time I get there. Typical of my life for as long as I’ve been alive. A whole buncha nothing for months at a time and then all of my socializing gangs up in one day.

Watched the Two Popes yesterday, and really enjoyed it even if it’s the most incredible vaseline on the lens billet doux to the Catholic Church.

Coffee’s on, day’s begun. I’ll be leaving around 11 and not getting home until tomorrow I imagine.

Occasionally hard to follow but wonderful show ! the ending was very satisfying and a perfect set up for the already commissioned second season. The final scene was all the more satisfying for being about thirty seconds long, no damned long speeches.

I sometimes shoulder watch Lost in Space with Jeff but I’m only really happy when Ignacio Serricchio (West) and Mina Sundwall (Penny) are on screen. Everyone else seems either distracted or spaceable, like Parker Posey as Smith.

Omg

The latest from a heavy hitter in the industry

There’s a huge dustup right now in and around that org about generalized bigotry, homophobia and racism. I’m talking with mOm, who exposed me to romance novels, about it off line.

In other institutional racism news, the New York Times is openly publishing and apologizing for race science. All the news my ample fundament.

The genetic variations within ‘races’ – as based on ‘appearance’ is greater than the genetic variations outside it. Race is a social construct which supports the justification for land theft, appropriation of labour, rape, child theft and genocide. Fuck racism in all its forms. Thank you.

Called Keith yesterday. Found out that Alex was sick for Christmas so had it at home. Also Keith says that the new version of Little Women is a ten out of ten, which is good to know.

We’re up to the seventh episode of the Witcher on Netflix. Wildly uneven but fantastically cast, it’s attention grabbing for sure.

Here’s one of my fave folks on twitter talking about Witcher and Mandalorian and believe me when I say SHE’S NOT WRONG

Replying to

@scalzi

I would add that both had a lot more female gaze than many prior shows. Henry Cavill’s grunts are basically made of sex and “dude has a shootout in power armor while holding adorable helpless thing” causes spontaneous ovulation in a not-insignificant fraction of the audience.

I want to switch which instrument I play “Pardon me is that stool Taken” on to the ukelele as it is MORE APT

but it is kinda late in the process

Off to Timmy ho’s for donuts and other treats. Made the coffee at home to save money.

The clerk in the weed store recognized me by name and I’m still a little verklempt over my Vancouver Retail Christmas Miracle.

Something I ate disagreed with me so yesterday was a kind of a write off, but at least I got out of the house.

I’m reading up about existentialism.

The instrumental I’m working on is called “The Friend Who Gave Me This Ukelele” and I hope to have a scratch track up in a couple of days. I have decided to call her Pirate, after Billie Eilish

I got a sauna and a footrub for Christmas! I was experiencing tremendous arch pain in my right foot (wearing the wrong shoes for a walk plus standing cooking for parts of the day on Monday) and I slept without pain and woke without pain and now I’m at the Aerie looking at the slab of fog resting on Sto:lo.

Christmas Dinner was Halal food takeout from Anatolia’s Gate. I’ll reheat it for breakfast – levash and mixed kebabs and lamb shank oh my, pickled cabbage and rice and salad and pickled onions and what not.

Later today Die Hard and maybe some other movies. Right now I’m basking in being pain free.

What a card to draw for Christmas Day. It’s one of the best five cards in the deck, absent anyone else telling on it. Kids — dogs — a house  — and a patriarch! what could be finer.

Viewed Togo, and it’s worth seeing. There are a couple of action sequences that are almost sickeningly intense but I really enjoyed it and it’s quite well written. ALSO MANY DOGS behaving with hero nature and Willem Dafoe’s character rewriting the St. Crispin’s Day speech for GOOD PUPPERS!

I think I will go downstairs and play my ukelele.

I wrote 2k words on a fanfic yesterday and I’m out of my comfort zone with the characters and not enjoying it. The problem is that this one particular character comes up with dialogue like, “I hate to be the bearer of bad clichés,” which in my view is the funniest thing I’ve come up with lately.

LOLOLOL

Yesterday was the BIRD and O LORD. Katie, because she is a goddess come among us PICKED UP THE TURKEY which involved forking out 5 sawbucks for it. I left it on the counter so it was almost room temperature when I put in the oven.

Nothing but hassles with the fucking stuffing. You need to cook the stuffing in a dish, so the bottom doesn’t burn and it can be steamed -if you’re doing it in the Instant Pot -, but I’m special and different and the rules don’t apply to me (as it always turns out this is not true) it got very very crispy and extremely mushy AT THE SAME TIME because that’s what happens when you put it on four cook cycles and then add stock and reset it every time it says . In despair I handed it to Katie to chip out of of the instant pot and left it on the stovetop and then for the last hour I stopped despairing and I threw it in with the bird where the stuffing absorbed about two thirds of the fat and butter which rolled off the turkey and went from being, ‘yeah I am stuffing, I contain pork, celery, poultry seasoning, two loaves of bread, an onion’ to being I AM STUFFING WORSHIP ME AS YOUR GOD FOR ALL TIME for my UMAMI ESCULENCE IS INFILTRATING YOUR EVERY NERVE AND SINEW haha haaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha

KATIE ALSO RESCUED THE GRAVY, which I managed to almost ruin because I don’t stir things.

Anyway, there were smashed potatoes, boiled carrots, yams and sweet potatoes (why both, why not), stuffing, cranberry dressing finished with a tablespoon of rum, beets, and the bird itself was PERFECTLY COOKED and moist throughout, seriously it’s possible I’ve done one better bird in my life back in Toronto when we lived on the Lakeshore. I’ve made prettier birds, with more crackly skin but this bird was perfect for noms.

Mike came and gave me a ukelele, isn’t it hideous? It sounds great. Mike has invited me for a Christmas Day sauna, to which as you can imagine my response is a cheery hell yeah.

So we had family plus Paul and Mike. Hung out with Alex some more.

My feet are killing me. Cooking means standing and I’m not a fan.